150 Word Review: '12 Monkeys' (1995)
You can't go home again
Terry Gilliam's movies are visually inventive phantasmagorias that mix reality and fantasy. While 12 Monkeys isn't his masterpiece, it is one of the famously difficult director's most successful big-budget Hollywood spectacles, according to the box office and critics, at least. This movie shouldn't work, but it does. 12 Monkeys is a melancholy time-travel thriller about madness and plagues loosely based on La Jetée, an experimental French short from 1962 directed by Chris Marker.
Bruce Willis stars as a convict hurtled back to the 90s to learn who unleashed a virus that killed off most of humanity and left the rest to scurry underground to live like roaches. The technology isn't perfect or precise—side effects include confusion and temporal displacement. Brad Pitt earned a Best Supporting Oscar nom for portraying an emotionally unwell aristocrat/terrorist. Madeleine Stowe is a shrink who sympathizes with Willis' character's apocalyptic ramblings. The future haunts the past.
Random Rankings
Top 5 Terry Gilliam Movies
5. 'Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas' (1998)
4. '12 Monkeys' (1995)
3. 'Time Bandits' (1981)
2. 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen' (1988)
1. 'Brazil' (1985)